Basketball focuses on defence

 

National men’s basketball coach Paul Whippy is focus on zone defence against Papua New Guinea for their pool decider. 

Coach Whippy is confident that his boys will be able to defend their title successfully. 

He was happy with how they beat American Samoa 76-55. 

“It was a good performance and I’m very pleased,” Whippy said, 

“We play our last pool game against PNG which will probably be the toughest game.

“The onus is on me too to prepare us on zone defence.”

Whippy said in their last two games they played “man to man” defence and were dominant but they have got to play the same amount of intensity and better, to be able to get the same results and that was his only concern.

PNG won their two games and Fiji won two against the Samoans by 80-61 and against the American Samoans.

Whippy and his team are hoping to win against PNG to give them an easier way to the quarter finals and despite seeing that the PNG side have much taller players than the Fiji boys, Whippy believes they have the mental toughness to handle whatever comes their way.

“We understand that being the defending champs, all teams will want to beat us.

 

“ I’m pretty much confident that we can retain the gold medal because we play as a team and I believe that’s what got us the gold medal in 2007.”